Retired General Barry McCaffrey said Sunday that claims by Sen. Joseph Biden that U.S. forces in Iraq have trained just 3,000 Iraqi troops to fight without U.S. help are flat out wrong.
Asked about Biden's contention, Gen. McCaffrey told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the actual number of self-sufficient Iraqi troops was far higher.
"My judgment is today there are probably 110 battalions fielded, probably 36 of them are capable of taking a lead in active operations."
Each Iraqi battalion contains 600 to 700 troops, McCaffrey said, putting the full number of self sufficient Iraqi troops at at least 21,600 - more than seven times what Biden claimed.
"That's a huge force and it's going to start to make a difference," he added, explaining that he based his information on personal discussions with "General George Casey in country and Dave Petraeus, a guy who's actually in charge of trying to build the Iraqi security forces."
Retired General Wayne Downing also challenged the credibility of Sen. Biden's pessimistic Iraqi troop estimates, telling "Meet the Press" that the Iraqi army had "36 good battalions now."
"A year ago, we only had one," Downing explained. "[We'll have] maybe three times that, maybe 108, 110 battalions ready by next summer."
"That would indicate that there's a possibility that you could start pulling U.S. forces out at that time," Downing said.
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